October 27 - December 16, 2022 


The Harold J. Miossi Gallery and Cuesta College are pleased to present Physicality of Joy by Los Angeles-based artist Joshua Aster. Known for his intricate use of grids and patterns, Aster’s work constructs new visual relationships. By combining unique subject matter with a complex sense of color and elements of geometric abstraction, he produces paintings that are vibrant, honest, and bold.

In Physicality of Joy, a solo exhibition featuring new egg oil tempera paintings, Aster presents works inspired by memories of place, domestic patterns, and challenging current events. Composed of interconnected or overlapping scenes, these works feature triangular grids that obscure specificity, while providing a jumping off point for transformation into a new kind of possibility. Created as a meditation on the elements of our fragile existence, the paintings weave together elements of love and fear, hope and joy.

Artist Talk

Artist Statement

If you put your fingers in front of your eyes and wiggle them, you can see the world distorted and flickering. That’s what I’m going for with this body of work.

Some of these paintings are started by making a rough sketch on the painting of domestic places from memory or that are made up. Then I refract the lines of the image through variable triangle grids.

Some other paintings are started with painted everyday floor patterns

interspersed with current events in the news that are upsetting. To me this feels like the undertow that runs beneath our fragile existence.

Painting these has been a meditation on memories, hopes, patterns, love and fears woven to create a physicality of joy.

Joshua Aster 2022 August 23

Artist Bio

Joshua Aster is a Los Angeles based artist and abstract painter who received his MFA from UCLA in 2007. He has been featured in numerous exhibitions including solo painting exhibitions at Edward Cella Art, Karl Hutter Fine Art, Carl Berg Gallery, and LAXART. His work has been featured in the LA Weekly and The Los Angeles Times amongst other publications. He was awarded a MacDowell Residency in September 2014. He is also a founding member of the artist collective OJO, and has presented work at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Los Angeles and LACE in Hollywood, CA. His 26-foot-long painting can be seen at the W Hotel in Hollywood and see if you can catch his work on the 2022 Amazon Prime TV show, “Cosmic Love.”

 
Press Release

Newtimes SLO Review

 

Paintings on a wall